Emoji Bingo: 120 Picture Squares for a Party or a Video Call: how it works
Emoji bingo is picture bingo anyone can follow: 120 squares, from 😀 grinning face to 🧦 socks, each an emoji with its Unicode name. The caller has a word to read out, and a mixed-language group has a picture to find.
Emoji bingo on a video call
Set How many cards to the number of players, press Share these cards and paste the link in the chat. It opens the same set on every phone. Give each player a card number; the pager reads Card 3 of 8. The host shares a screen on Call the game, which shows each call large, picture and name.
Smaller cards and themed rounds
On a phone, switch Grid to 3 × 3 or 4 × 4 so each picture is easier to spot. For a themed round, open Word list, one per line and keep two of the five blocks of 24: lines 25 to 72, 🐶 dog face to ☕ hot beverage, are the animals and the food. A list that short still travels in the share link.
Tips
Call the picture as well as the name: lightning bolt for high voltage, car for automobile. The list under the cards glosses the stiffest names.
With a mixed-language group, show the caller screen and say nothing. Players find the picture, then name it in their own language.
Questions and answers
Why does the caller say hot beverage and not coffee?
Every square carries the English short name Unicode publishes for that emoji, and some are stiffer than speech: ☕ is hot beverage, 🚗 is automobile, ⚡ is high voltage and ⛄ is snowman without snow.
Why do the emoji look different on another phone?
Unicode sets the character and its name, not the artwork. Each phone and computer maker draws its own set, and this page embeds no images, so one square can look different on two screens. The name in the square settles it.
Which bingo emojis were left out?
Flags, people, hands, skin tones, hearts, alcohol, weapons and any food with a second meaning in messages. All 120 on the list are single characters from Emoji 12.0 (2019) or earlier, so older devices can draw them.
How long does a game take?
In 2,000 games we simulated with ten players, the first line came after about 41 calls on 5 × 5 cards and about 16 on 3 × 3 cards. Twenty players on 5 × 5 cards brought it down to 34.
Can I make cards from my own emoji, or numbered cards?
Yes. Press Empty the list and paste your own, one emoji per line, with or without a name. For numbers, the bingo card generator deals 1 to 75 into any square, with no B to O columns.
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☕ hot beverageCallers may say coffee or tea; hot beverage is the Unicode name.
🍋 lemon
🍍 pineapple
🍕 pizza
🍿 popcorn
🥨 pretzel
🍎 red apple
🍦 soft ice cream
🍝 spaghetti
🍓 strawberry
🌮 taco
🍉 watermelon
Sky, weather and plants 24
🌵 cactus
🌸 cherry blossom
🌙 crescent moon
💧 dropletA drop of water.
🌲 evergreen tree
🔥 fire
🍀 four leaf clover
🌎 globe showing Americas
⚡ high voltageThe lightning bolt. High voltage is the Unicode name.
🍁 maple leaf
🌴 palm tree
🌈 rainbow
🪐 ringed planet
🌹 rose
🌠 shooting star
⛄ snowman without snowUnicode has two snowmen. The other is named plain snowman and is drawn with snow falling around it.
⭐ star
⛅ sun behind cloud
🌞 sun with face
🌻 sunflower
🌷 tulip
☔ umbrella with rain drops
🌋 volcano
🌊 water wave
Travel and everyday things 24
⏰ alarm clock
⚓ anchor
🚗 automobileA car. Automobile is the Unicode name.
🎈 balloon
🚲 bicycle
📚 books
🚌 bus
📷 camera
👑 crown
🚒 fire engine
🎸 guitar
🚁 helicopter
🏠 house
🔑 key
💡 light bulb
🚂 locomotiveA steam engine.
🚀 rocket
⛵ sailboat
⚽ soccer ball
🧦 socks
⛺ tent
🚜 tractor
🚦 vertical traffic light
🎁 wrapped giftA present.
How this list was compiled: Chosen for this site by the editors on 2026-09-19. Every square is one emoji followed by its English CLDR short name, exactly as Unicode publishes it; the names were not typed from memory but read by script from https://unicode.org/Public/emoji/latest/emoji-test.txt (Emoji Keyboard/Display Test Data for UTS #51, Version 18.0, file dated 2026-04-30), fetched on 2026-09-19, and the same names appear in the Unicode chart Emoji List, v18.0, https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/emoji-list.html , opened the same day. Each of the 120 emoji is a single code point that the file marks fully-qualified, so none needs a variation selector, a joiner or a skin-tone modifier, and each dates from Emoji 12.0 (2019) or earlier, so that phones and computers several years old can draw it. No image is embedded: the glyph is drawn by the visitor's own device font, which is why the same square looks different from one phone to the next (Unicode's emoji FAQ, https://www.unicode.org/faq/emoji_dingbats.html , read 2026-09-19: the Consortium 'is not a designer nor purveyor of emoji images' and has no control over how emoji appear on vendors' platforms). Left out on purpose: flags, people, hands and gestures, skin tones, hearts, alcohol, tobacco, weapons, pills and syringes, the slot machine, religious buildings, faces that are hard to tell apart at card size, and food emoji that carry a second meaning in messages. One animal per species: where Unicode has a face and a whole animal, only one is used. The short lines beside some squares are the editors' glosses for a caller (a car, a bee), not Unicode text. The usual ways to win at bingo were checked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingo_(American_version) on 2026-09-19. Licence: own work